Bottom Line:
We counted use or implied use of a tobacco product by an actor in all movies whose box office gross ranked in the top 10 for at least 1 week.Total tobacco incidents per movie rose 7% from 2010 to 2011, ending 5 years of decline; incidents rose 34% per movie rated G, PG, or PG-13 and 7% per R-rated movie.The reversal of progress toward less onscreen smoking in youth-rated movies underscores the need to rate movies with tobacco imagery as R, establishing an industry-wide market incentive to keep youth-marketed movies tobacco-free.

Affiliation: Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco, Room 366 Library, 530 Parnassus, San Francisco, CA 94143-1390, USA. glantz@medicine.ucsf.edu

ABSTRACTWe reviewed the number of incidents of tobacco use (almost exclusively smoking) depicted in movies in the United States in 2011 to compare that with previously reported trends. We counted use or implied use of a tobacco product by an actor in all movies whose box office gross ranked in the top 10 for at least 1 week. Total tobacco incidents per movie rose 7% from 2010 to 2011, ending 5 years of decline; incidents rose 34% per movie rated G, PG, or PG-13 and 7% per R-rated movie. The reversal of progress toward less onscreen smoking in youth-rated movies underscores the need to rate movies with tobacco imagery as R, establishing an industry-wide market incentive to keep youth-marketed movies tobacco-free.

Figure 2: Tobacco incidents per youth-rated top-grossing US movie among companies with published policies related to tobacco in youth-rated movies, 2002–2011. Time Warner adopted its policy in 2005, Comcast in 2007, and Disney in 2004. Youth-rated movies are those rated G, PG, or PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America. Top-grossing movies were those that were among the 10 top-grossing movies in any calendar week of the year. An incident is 1 use or implied use of a tobacco product (almost exclusively smoking) by an actor. Historical data are from our earlier report (3).

Mentions:
From 2005 through 2010, the 3 MPAA-member companies that had publicly available policies designed to discourage (but not eliminate) smoking in their movies (Comcast [Universal] [5], Disney [6], and Time Warner [7]) reduced tobacco incidents per youth-rated movie by more than 90%, to an average of 1 incident per movie (Figure 2). MPAA-member companies without such policies averaged reductions less than half as large (Figure 3), to an average of 11 incidents per movie (3). Companies with policies on average had 7.6 more tobacco incidents per youth-rated movie in 2011 than in 2010, to average 8.5 incidents per movie in 2011, while companies without policies had 1.3 fewer incidents, to average 11.9 incidents per movie in 2011. From 2010 to 2011, across companies with policies, the percentage of youth-rated movies that were tobacco-free declined by 17 percentage points (from 89% to 72%). Companies without policies also showed a retreat (from 64% to 55%). As of June 2012, no company had a blanket policy against including smoking or other tobacco imagery in its movies.

Figure 2: Tobacco incidents per youth-rated top-grossing US movie among companies with published policies related to tobacco in youth-rated movies, 2002–2011. Time Warner adopted its policy in 2005, Comcast in 2007, and Disney in 2004. Youth-rated movies are those rated G, PG, or PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America. Top-grossing movies were those that were among the 10 top-grossing movies in any calendar week of the year. An incident is 1 use or implied use of a tobacco product (almost exclusively smoking) by an actor. Historical data are from our earlier report (3).

Mentions:
From 2005 through 2010, the 3 MPAA-member companies that had publicly available policies designed to discourage (but not eliminate) smoking in their movies (Comcast [Universal] [5], Disney [6], and Time Warner [7]) reduced tobacco incidents per youth-rated movie by more than 90%, to an average of 1 incident per movie (Figure 2). MPAA-member companies without such policies averaged reductions less than half as large (Figure 3), to an average of 11 incidents per movie (3). Companies with policies on average had 7.6 more tobacco incidents per youth-rated movie in 2011 than in 2010, to average 8.5 incidents per movie in 2011, while companies without policies had 1.3 fewer incidents, to average 11.9 incidents per movie in 2011. From 2010 to 2011, across companies with policies, the percentage of youth-rated movies that were tobacco-free declined by 17 percentage points (from 89% to 72%). Companies without policies also showed a retreat (from 64% to 55%). As of June 2012, no company had a blanket policy against including smoking or other tobacco imagery in its movies.

Bottom Line:
We counted use or implied use of a tobacco product by an actor in all movies whose box office gross ranked in the top 10 for at least 1 week.Total tobacco incidents per movie rose 7% from 2010 to 2011, ending 5 years of decline; incidents rose 34% per movie rated G, PG, or PG-13 and 7% per R-rated movie.The reversal of progress toward less onscreen smoking in youth-rated movies underscores the need to rate movies with tobacco imagery as R, establishing an industry-wide market incentive to keep youth-marketed movies tobacco-free.

Affiliation:
Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, University of California, San Francisco, Room 366 Library, 530 Parnassus, San Francisco, CA 94143-1390, USA. glantz@medicine.ucsf.edu

ABSTRACTWe reviewed the number of incidents of tobacco use (almost exclusively smoking) depicted in movies in the United States in 2011 to compare that with previously reported trends. We counted use or implied use of a tobacco product by an actor in all movies whose box office gross ranked in the top 10 for at least 1 week. Total tobacco incidents per movie rose 7% from 2010 to 2011, ending 5 years of decline; incidents rose 34% per movie rated G, PG, or PG-13 and 7% per R-rated movie. The reversal of progress toward less onscreen smoking in youth-rated movies underscores the need to rate movies with tobacco imagery as R, establishing an industry-wide market incentive to keep youth-marketed movies tobacco-free.